20th century art turned away from classical
or formal portrait art and focused instead
on new ways of presenting reality. Portraits became merely another genre
which artists used to promote a particular style of art.

The most famous portraitists of pre-war
Europe belonged mostly to either the Ecole
de Paris (Paris School) or the German
Expressionism movement. The main styles of French painting included
brightly coloured Fauvism, the more cerebral Analytical Cubism, and general
forms of Expressionism. German artists were also strongly influenced by
events in Paris, although they developed a separate style of portrait
prints, including woodcuts - see, for instance, Emil Nolde's The Prophet
(1912, Museum of Modern Art, New York). For more about 20th century portraits,
see: Analysis of Modern Paintings
(1800-2000).

In Germany, the greatest portraitists included
members of the Dresden/Berlin Die Brucke group (1905-13), such
as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) [Franzi in front of a Carved Chair]
and Emil Nolde (1867-1956); members of the Munich Der Blaue Reiter
group (1911-14), including: Alexei von Jawlensky (1864-1941) [Head
of a Woman] and Gabriele Munter (1877-1962) [Meditation]; members
of the 1920s Die Neue Sachlichkeit group such as Otto Dix (1891-1969)
[Portrait Of The Journalist Sylvia Von Harden]; and the Austrian
expressionists Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980).

Abstract Portraiture
After World War I (1925-1960)

The social and moral upheaval caused by
the catastrophe of World War I had a major effect on fine art painting.
In particular, it undermined the tradition of figure painting and figure
drawing, and abstract art began to dominate all genres, including portraiture.
See for instance, Weeping
Woman (1937) by Picasso. This trend strengthened further after World
War II, as abstract expressionism took hold in New York - the new capital
of world art. But see de Kooning's Woman series, which opened with
Seated Woman
(1944). Not until the Pop Art movement did representational art make a
significant reappearance.

Pop Art Portraits

The leading exponent of Pop portraiture
was Andy Warhol (1928-87). Warhol, made full use of new commercial art
techniques, like screenprinting, with enormous success. For example, according
to a report in the London Economist, Warhol's 1963 screenprint Eight
Elvises was sold privately by its owner Annibale Berlingieri for a
whopping $100 million. Other famous Warhol portrait prints include Marilyn
(1967) and Elizabeth Taylor (1967). Another talented Pop portraitist
was David Hockney (b.1937) who produced a number of crisp modern portraits,
including: Portrait of Nick Wilder (1966), Mr and Mrs Clark
and Percy (1970), as well as a number of self portraits. (Note: For
a brief study, see: Andy
Warhol's Pop Art of the sixties and seventies.)

Photorealist
Portraits

Another important trend which emerged during
the 1960s in America, was Photorealism (also known as hyperrealism or
superrealism). Members included the highly innovative portraitist Chuck
Close (b.1940), who became famous for his huge self portraits.

In addition to artists from these specific
schools, the twentieth century saw the emergence of several individual
portrait painters, such as the versatile Graham Sutherland, the expressive
surrealist Francis Bacon, the classical Lucien Freud and the famous "impastoist"
Frank Auerbach.

Graham Sutherland (1903-1980)
An early Neo-Romantic landscape artist, Graham Sutherland took up portraiture
after the war. His most famous paintings included: Portrait of Somerset
Maugham (1949) and the controversial Sir Winston Churchill, which
was commissioned in 1954 and later destroyed.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
Deeply influenced by Surrealism, as well as the apocalyptic images of
Edvard Munch, William Blake and Hieronymous Bosch, Francis Bacon produced
a number of nightmarish portraits hovering between control and fear. His
works include: The Screaming Pope (1953) - based on Velazquez'
Portrait of Pope Innocent X - Portrait of George Dyer Talking
(1966), and Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror (1968). For more
details of Irish portraiture, see Irish
Portrait Artists.

Lucian Freud (b.1922)
Grandson of Sigmund Freud, the artist Lucian Freud was one of Britain's
most active artists. His main subject was the human figure, and his raw,
naturalistic style of figure painting
depicts the human body and face in all its unique contours, lines and
individual detail. He painted people "not because of what they are
like... but how they happen to be." Among his huge output of portraiture
and life-like figure paintings are: Naked Man With Rat (1977),
The Painter's Mother (1984) and Benefits Supervisor Sleeping
(Portrait of Sue Tilley) (1995).

Frank Auerbach (b.1931)
Frank Auerbach, the highly respected German-born British semi-abstract
expressionist, trained at the Royal College of Art before becoming famous
for his heavily impastoed portrait paintings.